If you want a more direct answer to what’s happening to the scenes, gentrification and real estate financialization are shutting down venues and making the existing ones take less risks on small bands. But small bands need to be able to work for the talent pool to remain healthy, so the easiest way to do that is consolidate physically

Because they want to get bigger and more successful thats why. And there is a “limit” to how big you can get in a local scene in a smaller city.

Even LA artists from the 90s dont stick around their same neighborhood (with the exception of Snoop who still lives in Long Beach)